My ADHD Clutter Story by Melanie

I am Melanie (She Her), Or Mel as most people call me. I work as a middle manager in a corporate job and as a small business owner as a decluttering coach and professional organizer.

This is my ADHD and Clutter story.

I am an empty nester and have been married to my husband and terrific neurotypical partner, Mike, for 27 years. I live near Toronto in Ontario, Canada, and enjoy playing ice hockey, writing, reading, practicing yoga, and keeping fit. I am also a mom to 2 young adult daughters who both make me immensely proud every day. I was diagnosed with ADHD late in life, at age 53, and started taking medications and working with an ADHD coach just this January.

In the mid-70s, when I started grade school, no one talked about ADHD.  I think a little later they did, but it was only hyperactive little boys who were acting out they used the term about.  I was a super talkative little girl who liked to read a lot and was mainly doing ok at school.

I was always messy. I often put something on any surface and then no longer saw it. To me, it all became the landscape of the room. I was always in trouble for it at home as a kid. (My poor parents tried their best.) Living with a few different roommates, my now-husband later kept me in check. I developed some simple routines to stay on top of my stuff.

However, when I became a mom at 29 and then went back to work full-time, I became overwhelmed.  Add kiddo number 2 a few years later, and the wheels really started to fall off.  During that second mat leave, I fell into a depression.  The house was a disaster.  I often spent hours a day crying. Finally, I went to my doctor and got help; getting on some antidepressants and adding light daily exercise seemed to get me back on track.

But our messy home was getting worse and worse as time went on.  I had a shopping problem I see now. So much stuff was coming into our house for what I know now was likely some dopamine-seeking behaviours.  I bought Rubbermaid tubs, bins, baskets, and even furniture to store it all and was convinced I needed to organize it. Nothing ever was leaving the house. More kept coming in.  After all, it was perfectly good, useful stuff, and we might need it someday. My memory problems were starting to get worse, and I often never remembered what we had or where it was, so we would buy what we could not find.

When we had company, it was a huge work effort to clean and tidy the home at the last minute. I would shove and stuff wherever I could, but I went to great lengths to keep this all secret. 

My husband was often frustrated and tried to talk to me about shopping and letting go of stuff, but I was always very defensive and snappy back. I feel bad about that now. It could not have been fun for him. He would often go through the kids' toys with them and pack up stuff to get out of the house and regain control, as I never had the capacity.

When I returned to work after daughter number two was born, we had a housekeeper help come in every couple of weeks, which was a terrific help. However, I would tidy in a mad rush like a crazy person the night before so they could clean. When I was tired most nights after the kid's routines and dinner, I grabbed an empty bin or laundry basket and just threw the random stuff in there, thinking I would put it all away later. The baskets got shoved into our unfinished basement, where, due to my memory issues, I promptly forgot about them.

Fast forward several years, and my oldest was struggling and hated school.  After talking to a caring teacher, we took her to get privately assessed, and it was found that she had ADHD.  As they described the symptoms and experiences, I heard warning bells.   Parts of this sounded like me.  But I told myself I was doing ok.  My career was taking off. I was volunteering in the community and thought I had it all together. 

In the meantime, our home was getting worse and worse.  Those doom boxes in the basement were filling up that space.  And my shopping was creating more and more extra junk in our house.  But it was overwhelming me more and more. 

I finally started to make a change around 2019. I tried so many different methods and ways to declutter and found many of them so overwhelming. I finally found Dana K White on a podcast and started listening and trying her methods; somewhat half-assed, but it did help.  Something about her and her self-deprecating humour, describing her issues and new simple steps, spoke to me.  It was like she was in my head.  I watched all her YouTube videos. And had a realization that every little bit of time helps.  It did not need to be a whole-day marathon.  We made massive momentum in our home during the pandemic by decluttering and getting honest about how much we could manage.

We set up routines with laundry and dishes and standard housekeeping tasks.  I even do menu planning now before we shop for groceries. 

We emptied out that basement of all its Doom boxes and surprises. It was painful because I had to admit I had done this, and all the money was wasted. I was able to confront that secret shame and no longer shop like I once did.

We can have people over with little notice, and I am not embarrassed. We can now see and keep up with regular home chores and maintenance projects. Someone can work on our furnace or water heater without spending days clearing a path for them. I can be on a Zoom call and not worry about the piles in the background.

My home still gets messy, but routines quickly restore it. I know where things are, and regular decluttering is now an ingrained habit and is really satisfying.

Now, I am making it my mission to help other ADHD people, with all the empathy in the world, no matter where they are starting from, to declutter and organize their homes and lives functionally and reduce their stress and overwhelm.  It was amazing how much having a tidier, less cluttered home has helped me function better in so many areas that I was struggling with.

If I can do this, anyone can!